According to Doug Rushkoff, author of Life Inc, Google’s announced operating system will help unchain us from the shackles of corporate interests.

“As the Google Apps suite of programs finally graduated from its ‘beta’ status this week, Google also announced its plans to release an operating system on which to run them. Google Chrome, based on the company’s new browser, will invite us all to spend a lot less time, energy, and money on our computers—and in the process, it may force the technology industry to consider how to make money after people no longer require expensive machines and software to do their work.”

Of course what the Chrome OS will really do is transfer power over our office productivity from Microsoft to Google. We’re simply exchanging one corporate juggernaut for another. Rushkoff doesn’t see this as a bad thing though.

“And luckily for us (if not the company’s shareholders), Google tends to do things because they’re neat, and worry about business models later. While it may imagine its OS will provide new opportunities to sell advertising space, chances are Google is hoping to benefit purely from the increased Internet traffic catalyzed by an always-on, always-connected, and always-collaborating network of users.”

So basically we’ll have to rely on Google’s promise to do no evil.

I’m not so sure about the Chrome OS. At least with MS Windows and Office I can still manage, encrypt and and delete my own files. With Google’s OS and Apps, it all resides in the cloud. How do I know that when I delete something on Google Apps it’s really gone? I don’t. On the contrary, it’s likely my docs will continue to exist in some form or another out there on the interwebs.

And until the Chrome OS can run F.E.A.R. 2 with a frame rate of at least 40fps, I’m definitely not switching.

A group of companies has created an alliance to reinvigorate PC gaming. The companies in this alliance form quite a powerful assortment: Microsoft, Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Dell, and more big guns of the IT and videogame industry.

In a previous post I lamented the decline of the PC as a gaming platform, so for me this comes as positive news. Let’s hope this coalition of juggernauts can turn the tide and return the PC to its rightful position as king of videogame platforms.

There’s a lively debate in the comments section of a Tweakers.net commentary (Dutch) about how PC games are losing ground to console games. Piracy is pinpointed as the primary cause of this, and I’m sure it has a lot to do with it, but the ever increasing prices of games in general must take some of the blame as well.

€50 or more for a videogame is an awful lot of money, especially when many games coming out these days tend to be quite short. While in the past you could lose yourself entirely in a game for weeks, nowadays a singleplayer experience of 10 hours or less is the norm.

The article on Tweakers was prompted by some comments an Infinity Ward employee made in a blog post about the vast amount of pirated CoD4 copies out there. I understand the guy’s frustration, but this is the result of a vicious circle the game industry helped start:

Pirated games -> less games sold -> prices go up to cover for reduced sales -> less people want to buy games at higher price -> more pirated games

There are some ways to break this downward spiral and perhaps save the PC as a gaming platform. One approach is to switch to online distribution channels exclusively (Steam comes to mind) and channel the reduced cost of distribution directly to the customer in the form of lower prices.

Many gamers, myself included, would be much more inclined to buy good PC games if we can do it easily at lower prices, rather than go through the hassle of getting a pirated copy with all the involved risks.

Let me emphasize that for you, so you understand the significance. I am a hardcore PC gamer. I despise consoles. I think consoles turn gaming into a brain-destroying, IQ-lowering, undignified affair that stands in direct contrast to the stimulating, intelligence-enhancing and thrilling experience that intricate and well-made PC games bring.

And I will buy an XBox 360 just to play that game. That’s how much I want it.

So it was the videocard after all. Yesterday it went mad cow on me again, right in the middle of a fight against a lvl68 Elite. That was the last straw for me.

I took the thing back to the store and after a surprisingly short wait they took a look at it. They put the videocard in a different PC and it gave the same errors, which was a huge relief. It was either a faulty card or a faulty powerfeed, and the latter would’ve been harder to replace.

They put in a new card, an exact same 7600 GT, and I was back in action. When I logged on in WoW I hadn’t even died.